checkmate_for_expectations h|s|g attending_and_listening 101206 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Let's see... Enjoys thoughtful conversations? Yes. Is courteous? Yes. Has an attractive-sounding voice? Quite! Wears glasses? No. Is likely to remain geographically accessible? No. Thinks the conflict between Israel and Palestine should be solved by an internationally arbitrated dance-off? Didn't ask. Thinks a Kraftwerk remix of Philip Glass would be really cool? Didn't ask either. Is either paradoxically preppy or Pakistani or Presbyterian or any combination thereof? No. Would laugh if I said "Always appreciate alliteration"? Probably not. I have to convince myself he isn't my type. Because he isn't especially taken with me and I know it. It was just talk. 101206 ... unhinged abandon_expectation 101206 ... e_o_i In my tired state last night I read the title as "checklist" instead of "checkmate". But I think the problem with having expectations *e_o_i converts to Serious Mode* is that you don't think you have them and then you find out you really do. Or would those be prejudices then? In any case, your point(s) is/are valid. 101207 ... e_o_i (that is, attending and listening. abandon_expectations.) 101207 ... unhinged quoting_myself years before i was a buddhist: expectations lead to everything short of the expected and as a pretty serious buddhist in the past year, many teachers i've studied with and attending talks by have the bent that expectation is the worst form of perception. it blocks us from seeing the reality of the present moment, because rather than seeing things for what they are, we see things for what they aren't. i find myself to be much happier with a lot of situations in my life if i abandon_expectation and let_go of how i think things should be and just let them be what/how they really are. 101207 ... unhinged on_contentment lovingkindness 101207 ... e_o_i I know you wrote this a few days ago, but I'm curious as to how you define expectation... I find when I imagine going through the motions of a situation (like talking to someone I've been dreading to meet) it helps me calm down, or at least think of ways to cope. But perhaps that is imagination rather than expectation. If I have a sort of rigid idea about what to expect, some thought like "I expect X person to react X way", things are more likely to screw up. Sorry. Don't mean to be splitting hairs. And about the Dashing International Student, we're talking, at least. Actually in this case I am determined not to expect anything. Nope! Neither the second quasi-romantic relationship of my life nor a subject for alliterative verse. Expectation in that sense can mean treating people like objects. Well, we'll see how I do. 101215 ... unhinged expectation is imagination; of all the scenarios that could happen, the scenarios we wish would happen, everything we think of that is not the reality of the present moment expectation steals happiness. we can't appreciate what we actually have if we spend all our time and energy wishing for something else. i've calmed down considerably since i learned how to stop and look around at what i actually have. i mean of course i still have expectations; that's a human reaction. but i am getting better at choosing to see the upside of any given moment. 101216 ... e_o_i I think there is a difference between imagination and expectation, and that difference lies in the emotional investment you have. Not that it always is a bad thing, at least not in my experience. Sometimes it's good to prepare yourself. But sometimes you have to prepare yourself by admitting you don't know what will happen anyway. And this can be in relation to the things I was talking about with (she who is known here as) anne_girl today: relationships and writing. Or other things, que je ne sais pas. 101230 ... unhinged imagination is what puts monsters under the bed i couldn't dangle my feet over the edge of the bed in the dark when i was a kid; i was the only one that lived upstairs when i was a kid and when my dad shut the light out before i got all the way into my room i would run the last few feet like my ass was on fire because i was convinced something was going to snatch me from out of the darkness 101231 ... unhinged . 110512 what's it to you? who go blather from